Radkey LIVE @ Liverpool Kazimier 24.06.14

Rating:

Radkey have been making a lot of noise recently, and my word what a noise they make. The critically lauded punk rock outfit from St Louis, Missouri have an intense live show comprising a maturity far beyond their tender years.

Support came from local bands The Sugarmen and Oxygen Thieves. The Sugarmen play raucous rock and roll and have a raw energy to them which is hard not to like; You can catch them at Festival 6 in Portmeirion this festival season as well as Liverpool International Music Festival. Oxygen Thieves also rocked out and brought some tasty riffs with them, making me want to check out both acts again.

The three brothers from Missouri kicked off proceedings with ‘Le Song’, a fast paced assault on the ears to get everybody’s blood pumping before launching into ‘Little Man’ from their latest EP, Devil Fruit. What followed was simply excellent, prompting the crowd with the statement, “We wrote this next song for people to lose their shit to” before launching into ‘Out Here In My Head’, which has the potential to be one of those songs played on teens’ iPods (or whatever they listen to music on now) in the same way the Subways’ song ‘Rock & Roll Queen’ was back in 2008; A blast of resolute Misfits inspired anarchy which you can see being played over PA systems at every festival that isn’t V. ‘Evildoer’ and ‘Feed My Brain’ followed, before another song with all the trappings of bands like The Ramones and Misfits, ‘Start Freaking Out’, gave some fast and heavy riffs for everyone to drop all pretence of civility and dive into the pit.

It would be too simple to say that Radkey only have some kind of boisterous youthful exuberance on their side because it’s well constructed punk rock which wears its heart on its sleeve. This certainly came across to television viewers when they played on Jools Holland, and with the guys being 21, 18 and 16 years of age they definitely show intelligence which many, not just young, groups lack.

The band rattle through ‘Innocents Tonight’, fan favourites ‘Cat & Mouse’ and ‘Red Letter‘ before ‘N.I.G.G.A (Not Okay)’, the only time they make reference to being African-Americans in their music and a rebuttal to the kids in school who use the N word flippantly, or would even make a defense of it on the grounds of “I’m black so I can say it”, proving that, indeed, they are more than just three kids in a punk band; They have experience backing them up when they say they know what they’re talking about (believe me they do). The final two songs of the set began with recent single ‘Romance Dawn’, where the almost croonerish nature of Dee Radke’s vocal can draw the closest comparison to Glenn Danzig. Well, I say that but then they finished with a cover of the Misfits’ song ‘Last Caress’, which gave a like for like comparison that didn’t disappoint. With a strong end to a superb show, and their declaration on stage that an album is in the works, this is one band to keep a keen eye on as their stock can only go one way, and that is up.

Joe Carney

@ShadyPresents